| Written By Administrator Saturday, 18 July 2009 |
God is a promise-giver and promise-keeper! The whole Bible is filled with
the record of the promises of God to His people and details of how He kept
His word to them. In this article, we are going to specifically look at the
'faithfulness of God in keeping His promises' and 'our role in receiving the
fulfillment of those promises'.
The faithfulness of God in keeping His promises:
The Bible contains stunning incidents of what God has done in order to
fulfill His word to His children. Genesis to Revelation reveals how God is
ready to go to any length to keep His promises. Indeed, the Lord God
Almighty "watches over His word to see that it is fulfilled" (Jeremiah
1:12).
God bypasses the laws of the Human Body
It is God Himself who created women and the biological functions in their
body. However, in order to fulfill His word to Abraham and Sarah that they
would be blessed with a descendant, God caused even an old, dead and barren
womb to conceive (Genesis 18: 11).
God gives strange experiences to other people
We find this happen in the life of Joseph. While he was in prison, God gave
dreams to the butler, baker and the Pharaoh. Seeing a dream is, ofcourse,
not strange. But it is interesting that God gave these people all these
dreams in order to exalt Joseph and bring him to a position of
responsibility as promised to him while he was still a young boy.
God punishes those who stand as an obstacle to His people
The ten plagues that Egypt faced were sent as a punishment to that nation
because it kept the Israelites as slaves and refused to release them inspite
of divine orders!
God intervenes in Nature
Has anyone heard of a delay of almost a whole day for the sun to set? It
has never happened because there are fixed laws in Nature which govern the
universe. God exercised His sovereignty in this matter and stopped the sun
from setting in order that His people could defeat their enemies in war
(Joshua 10:7,12ff).
God moves the hearts of unbelievers such that they work on behalf of His
children
The Lord caused a change in the hearts of heathen authorities so that they
would work on behalf of His people. Kings and rulers, who were unbelievers,
brought about legislations and issued decrees so that the people of God
would be blessed and the plan of God would be fulfilled (Ezra 1:2-4;
Neh.2:8).
Our role in receiving the fulfillment of God's promises:
God is faithful to keep His word to us. But, on our part, we need to
exercise "faith and patience" to inherit the promises. "We do not want you
to become lazy but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit
what has been promised" (Hebrews 6:12).
We are required to patiently wait, pray and walk in the ways of the Lord in
order to receive the fulfillment of His promises to us. The following
examples reveal this truth:
God promised Elijah that He was going to send a heavy rain after a gap of 3
1/2 years. This was definitely a sure word but the prophet did not just sit
and relax awaiting the rain. Rather, he went on his knees and began to pray
steadfastly for the rain to come (1Kings 18:1,41,42). Abraham was expected
to "walk in the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just" so that the
promise spoken to him would come to pass (Genesis 18:19).
The Timing of God
God always has an appointed time for everything. This is clearly
demonstrated in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. His whole life was
punctuated with the statement, "My time has not yet come" (John 2:4) and
"The time has come" (John 17:1).
Solomon says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter
under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The Lord tells the prophet Habakkuk, "For
the revelation awaits 'an appointed time'; it speaks of the end and will not
prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will
not delay" (Habakkuk 2:3). The apostle Peter exhorts the believers to
humble themselves under the mighty hand of God in order that He may exalt
them 'in due time' (1 Peter 5:6).
God's timing is always perfect. The Word of God declares that He makes
everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God is neither slow
nor fast; He is always on time. And we must learn to trust His timing, no
matter how painful it seems to be.
The Three Stages
The First stage is where God gives us the promise.
The Second stage is the time between the reception of the promise and the
fulfillment of the promise (where there is a maturing process at work).
The Last stage is where the promise is fulfilled.
Many of us do not realize that there is a time gap between when God
initially communicates the promise to us and when He finally carries out His
word. We are often prone to thinking that if God gives us a promise today,
we will receive its fulfillment the same day or the next day itself. And
because of this false expectation, we become lazy and discouraged and we
forget that we have a responsibility in this whole process of inheriting the
promises of God.
Dangers of Impatience
Our impatience in waiting for God's time to fulfill His word to us can bring
a lot of confusion and hindrance in receiving the fulfillment of our
promises.
Children of the Flesh will be born (Romans 9:6)
Abraham failed to wait for God's appointed time. The result was that
Ishmael was born. And what do we find today? That he was and still is a
great hindrance for the people of Israel.
If we are impatient with God, we will end up obtaining what we ourselves
have produced in our own fleshly strength. These works are not born by the
power of the Spirit but by the power of the flesh (Galatians 4:29).
Unnecessary problems will arise (Genesis 37: 5 to 8)
Joseph had a dream and he made the mistake of sharing it with his unloving
brothers. This only caused them to hate him more.
Impatience and immaturity make some people think that if a member of their
family has to get saved, they must always tell them about Christ. But the
truth is that if we constantly 'bombard' our unsaved relatives like this, it
will only harden their hearts still further.
We will end up misrepresenting God and His ways (Luke 10:51 to 56)
John and James, in their impatience and intolerance with people, were ready
to bring down fire from Heaven when a Samaritan village refused to welcome
the Lord Jesus and His disciples. The Lord immediately rebuked them saying
that they were operating in 'another spirit'!
We often see people constantly expressing to the unbelievers in their family
when they go through difficult situations that all their problems are a
result of their refusal to surrender their life to God. But we need to
remember two things:
Firstly, how did God deal with us when we ourselves were unbelievers? Was
He not patient and silent with us? "Because of the Lord's great mercies,
our sins have not consumed us" (Lamentations 3:22). Secondly, we need to
remember that trials and tribulations don't go away after we put our faith
in Christ; they only tend to increase! So the thought that problems come
because of one's rejection of God is not sound, Biblical reasoning!
We will fail to receive the fullness of what God has for us (John 11:1 to
45)
When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He purposely delayed His visit to
Bethany and reached there only after four days of receiving their word. Now,
if the Lord had gone earlier, a simple healing would have taken place. But
because Jesus went after Lazarus died and was buried in the tomb, that dear
family was able to see the glory of God in all its fullness!
If we are impatient with God, we will get over-excited with the smallest
sign of progress or fulfillment of our promise. This will fill us with a
spirit of complacency and make us satisfied with immature fruits. We will
thus fail to receive the fullness of what God actually has in store for us.
The reverse is also true because impatience with the ways of God can cause
us to get overly-discouraged when we see things getting worse. And if we
get too frustrated, the Lord will then be forced to intervene prematurely.
The Waiting Time
What does God do during the waiting time?
Well, the waiting time is never a wasted time! During this period, God
prepares and develops us to 'receive His promises' as well as to 'handle
the inheritance'.
We must always remember that God sometimes 'delays' in fulfilling His word
to us because He wants to bless others as well through that promise being
fulfilled in our life. For example, 2 Peter 3:9 shows us that the Lord is
delaying His return to earth to take His saints to be with Him in order that
every sinner will be given further opportunity to repent and thereby join in
that glorious celebration.
Faith and patience are inseparable! Many people fix a deadline for God,
especially when it comes to the salvation of their loved ones! We think
that our fixture of a definite time is because we have more faith. But the
truth is that if we establish a date without a specific word from God, we
are only moving in unbelief! Have you noticed that when a person lends
money to another, he will never fix a definite time period for return of the
cash if the borrower is a close friend of his? He gives him total freedom
and liberty in the matter!
Faith is always ready to wait! I close with a treasured quotation from
Oswald Chambers: "Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him, as it
were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint's duty is to be still and
listen. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. Never try to
help God to fulfill His word."
